The ABCs of Sherlock Holmes's Favourite Foods
by Cumberbatch Critter
Summary: Sherlock's a picky eater; time has proven that to John after months of living with the childish detective. And like any picky child, Sherlock has his favourites. Oneshots covering Sherlock's 'favourite foods', from A to Z.
1. Apple

**The ABCs of Sherlock Holmes's Favourite Foods**

John had a penchant for buying food. Well, okay, _everyone_ had to buy food to survive, but John tended to buy food that Sherlock had never previously had the time for.

Fruit, for instance.

Sherlock never had time or ambition to fuss with fruit. More often than not, it involved some time in cleaning the fruit, peeling the fruit, sweetening the fruit... Of course, any of those options depended on the type of fruit that you had. All fruit was _supposed_ to be rinsed off, technically, for pesticides and all that rubbish. Oranges needed the peel taken off. Nectarines and grapefruit were more often than not bland or sour to the taste before it was left to soak in a three-fourths parts sugar and one-fourth part water solution.

Sherlock just didn't have _time_ for these things.

It wasn't that Sherlock didn't _like_ them.

He liked the crunch of the first bite of an apple- with the peel, thank you very much- and the sweet (or the sour, depending on the apple) rushing over his taste buds in a cascade of taste and flavour. He liked the way that an apple was pliable beneath his teeth, easily broken down or nibbled on with little effort.

Oranges were delicious. The fact of the matter was that he liked to create a rip, a small tear, in the otherwise perfect expanse of pocketed orange peel. Then, he could hook his finger under the protective layer of that succulent fruit and begin to wind the peel away. The smell of oranges pervading the air, the scent imprinted onto the fingers used to peel the orange...

There were things he didn't like, naturally. Bananas were too mushy and pears were too tough for his liking.

But it didn't matter, because he didn't have time for it.

And then suddenly he _did_, because John was there and John bought all the fruit and John did all the rubbish that needed to be done with it. (Provided, of course, that the rubbish needed to be to it didn't involve it spoiling in a few days.) The apples that went in the bowl were already washed and ready to be eaten. Same with the oranges in the kitchen, except they still needed peeled. John even bought cans of fruit cocktail, not that Sherlock liked canned fruit. There were bananas in the flat for a short time until John learned that Sherlock would just let them rot, which would attract fruit flies and gnats.

Sherlock sighed and got to his feet, stretching. He'd been sitting at the microscope for six hours and John had been out for two. The experiment was finished, mostly, and Sherlock found the familiar ache in the pit of his stomach demanding that he acquiesce to its needs.

A quick glance through the cupboards told Sherlock what John must have earlier- John had gone out shopping. Or, he intended to go shopping before he came home. Two hours was an awfully long time to spend grocery shopping, so he had clearly gone somewhere else in the meantime. There was nothing in the fridge, save half of a petrol station vending machine sandwich and even famished, Sherlock wouldn't have touched that.

With a quiet huff, Sherlock's eyes fell on the fruit bowl on the sitting room coffee table. He perked up and strode across the room, picking one up. He turned it over, made sure that the produce sticker had been removed, and raised it to his lips.

He flopped onto the sofa as he took the first bite of the apple. The flavour immediately exploded into his mouth and he licked his lips, catching a bit of juice as it trickled past his lips.

He crunched on the apple contemplatively for a moment. It was sweet, not sour. The colour signified that it was not Granny Smith, but most probably... a Gala? He took another bite and munched it on in speculation. Definitely Gala, he concluded, licking another stray droplet of saliva and juice from his lips.

It was pleasant to find that apples were still as good as Sherlock remembered.

Sherlock took another bite and leaned back against the sofa's cushions. He propped his feet up and reached for the remote, eyes still bright with the edible and tasty deduction.

* * *

**New series... although this isn't going to have a structured pattern for updates, but I've been working on it a lot. Sherlock's favourite foods! And this certain type of writing... lots and lots of details. ;) There'll be entrees, there'll be snacks, there'll be drinks, desserts, and maybe sweets themselves. There's a lot of option here. Lots of fluffy Sherlock, lots of food. How is that bad?**

**I do not own _Sherlock_. Thank you!**


	2. Biscuit

As any English man, Sherlock took no exception to tea and biscuits.

It took him not having a case to actually sit down and partake in tea time, but the thing was that biscuits were _constantly_ nearby. They were in the alcove right above his head when he sat at the microscope, straight up and to the right slightly. If he was hungry when he was working- which was rare- all he had to do was reach up and grab the tin of the chosen biscuits of the week.

Such as was this morning.

Sherlock irritably knitted his fingers into his pyjamas as his stomach growled loudly in the otherwise silent flat. It was three twenty-seven in the morning. John was asleep and therefore, he had no one nagging at him to actually eat when his stomach growled. But, still, he hadn't eaten in a couple days and it felt like his stomach was turning in on itself.

Grumbling under his breath, he fumbled for the shelf and felt around for the tin of biscuits. His fingers closed around the cool metal box, the place where all their biscuits went when they were, inevitably, opened to take the first taste of. If left in the package, they would quickly get stale and a stale biscuit was of no use to anyone.

Without looking away from his microscope, Sherlock set the tin down almost silently next to him, freeing his opposite hand to reach across to the tin. Steadying the box with one hand, he easily flipped it open with his other before both hands went back to changing the slide of his microscope.

His stomach growled again; perhaps it was aware that food was in arm's reach and it had no desire to be ignored any longer. Sherlock impatiently- but ever as carefully- slid the new slide under the lens before straightening, magnifying, focussing. Only after his eyes were able to stare keenly at the new specimen did he allow his hands to other things: the tin of biscuits.

Long, pale fingers reached in, felt first the crumbs of biscuits long since consumed. He felt around for a hairbreadth of a second before his fingers brushed over the smooth expanse of a biscuit. He removed it from the tin and, still without once looking up, parted his lips and placed it between them. Light pressure from his teeth, the slightest constriction of his jaw, and the biscuit broke into two unequal pieces with a delicate crunch. Crumbs fluttered down from the mismatched edges, littering his trousers with barely noticeable beige flecks.

He chewed the biscuit quickly, slow enough to savour the slight sweetness and the delicate craft, but in such a time that his saliva would not cause the biscuit to become soggy. He swallowed and placed the leftover part of the biscuit on his tongue, letting it chase its companion in its journey to his stomach.

Methodically, he swiped the crumbs from his trousers and reached to switch out slides again.

He repeated the process again, drawing another chosen treat from the tin at his side to begin anew.

* * *

**I want some biscuits now. And that's all I'm going to say.**

**(Although- It's almost Thanksgiving for the non-Brits, which meaaannnss... Bonaffee pie! With lovely lovely British type biscuits.)**

**I do not own _Sherlock_. Thank you for your kind comments. :) **


	3. Crisps

Crisps were something that Sherlock was relatively picky about.

He hated the ruffled or ridged ones. Too easy was it to cut one's mouth open or scrape the gum line when an already sharp object had further means to do so. And, to Sherlock, there seemed to be far too much _crunch_ in ridged crisps. Too much work to work through the excess potato that ridges caused. Far easier for the jaw to hurt from excessive chewing and, although he wasn't sure, perhaps harder to digest. (To be honest, he didn't care enough to put that much research into it.)

Flavoured crisps also held no interest. Crisps were supposed to be a mean of consuming potato. When flavoured with prawn or chili, there was little potato flavour and far much left to be desired. Anyway, most flavourings used on crisps did not match up to what they were supposed to, they were constantly over-seasoned, or smelled off.

Plain crisps, perhaps, were his favourite. Crisps weren't something he snacked on all the time, but John had a fondness for them and it was another thing around the flat. Sherlock simply liked them because they were convenient.

Still, even plain crisps had to be _perfect_. They could not be too thick and they could not contain large amounts of MSG. The thinner the crisp, the better; the crisps that sometimes had air pockets in them made for a delightful treat.

Sherlock watched with some distaste as John crunched noisily on a bag of crisps. "You got the wrong kind."

John glanced away from the television, licking grease off of his fingers. "Huh?"

"Crisps," Sherlock said shortly.

John glanced at the bag of crisps- kettle-cooked- before looking back at the television. "No, I didn't. These are good."

"Impossible," Sherlock replied. "They're too crunchy."

John made a face. "They're crisps, Sherlock. They're supposed to be."

Sherlock fell silent again.

However, as soon as John had abandoned the television in favour of going to wash up for bed, Sherlock was across the room in three quick steps. He removed a singular crisp from the single-serving bag and looked at it intently. He ran his fingers over the surface of it, feeling the granules of salt. He held it up to the light, checking for the depth. He sniffed at it briefly. He was fairly sure, given the crunching John had been doing, that these were not crisps for him. But it was an experiment and he was not one to back away from that.

He placed the crisp in his mouth as a whole entity, letting his tongue and the roof of his mouth cocoon it snugly. Taste seeped onto his tongue, pervading his entire mouth before he hesitantly let his teeth crunch down on it.

The pressure exerted to get the crisp to break between his teeth was more than the average store-bought crisp. It almost had a consistency of biting onto a thin layer of glass. It cracked and crunched noisily, far too noisily for his mind, as he chewed slowly.

He licked his lips when he had swallowed it down, chasing away the remnants of the taste. It had not had a particularly good taste and the feel of it had been a displeasure as well.

Sherlock dropped the bag of crisps with nostrils flared in annoyance before going to pour himself a cup of tea.

* * *

**And, unlike the biscuits chapter, I doubt this makes anyone want to run out and eat some crisps, haha. Anyway, I _promise_ that there's going to be actual food featured, and not just snacks, and drinks and sweets, too.**

**(PS: I haven't forgotten about my other stories. The muse is down again, and I just happened to have some chapters already written for this story. I'm hoping to work on a chapter for _Surprise!_, so we'll see how the muse goes.)**

**I do not own _Sherlock_. Thank you for your support and reviews; I love to read them!**


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